A Father's Love
by Elendil Star-Lover
Summary: Why do we go to war? To save the ones we love.


A Father's Love  
By  
Elendil Star-Lover  
  
It was very late, that fateful night in Darigan Citadel, when I put my daughter to sleep. If you looked out her bedroom window, you couldn't see the barren, ruined ground where our people writhed in agony brought by disease and hunger. All you saw was the bright, twinkling stars in the heavens, dancing just for my Selena, by her namesake, Kreludor, Neopia's moon.  
  
Selena Tiatmat of the Moon, the young Lady of the Citadel, was curled under black silk sheets that were in desperate need of washing, having turned that color from a combination of what had become known as "Darigan's Curse" and wear. Her black paws were up by her cheeks, claws curled around bunches of fabric and hiding a majority of her beak, as if terrified that Balthazar was coming for her.  
  
You see, I am half Dark Faerie, making Selena one-fourth Dark Faerie and three-fourths Eyrie. Even then, when she was barely nine years old, I heard rumors throughout the Citadel that she had more power in the tip of one down feather than Jhudora had in her entire body. I did my best to quash these rumors, in case they were not true and the Dark One decided to find out for herself.  
  
I had begun to suspect that there was perhaps more truth to these rumors than even I had anticipated. My dearest Selena, at age nine, was faster, smarter, and more magically talented than the shambling excuse for what we called "knights" twice her age and training. Just that morning, one of the young ones in training to defend the Citadel from the monsters that had begun to roam the countryside had sparred with her and lost.  
  
Badly.  
  
My Selena was a tough one, I could tell, but I envied her innocence. She knew absolutely nothing of what was on my mind, and while she sensed my unease, she never addressed it nor acknowledged it. She continued playing in the courtyard where the Orb was kept, where she had her whole life, she continued attempting to give the captain of the guard, Galgarrath, an aneurism any time she got, and was completely inseparable from the Candychan I had gotten her, affectionately naming it "Kreluda".  
  
The outside world, the loss of the Orb, none of that bothered her. In her youth, she ignored it all, thinking of better, happier things. The people's cry, that she could not ignore and often begged me to give the people food, not understanding why they had none. It was her idea, though, to open the Citadel as a hospital and makeshift soup kitchen, not that we had very much soup. She wanted to go after an Everlasting Apple to feed to the people, but...some things can never be.  
  
And when I told her that I just couldn't, she would nod, wide-eyed, and wander away, hugging her Candychan. She didn't let matters of state bother her, and for that I would have given anything.  
  
Or almost anything.  
  
I wanted to forget, like she did. I wanted to forget that my once prosperous kingdom lay in ruins and that everyone, myself and my child included, went through the day with a starving belly. I wanted to become a child again, and let the weary, scared adults handle things while I played with my Petpet.  
  
Another reason that I wondered if my daughter was more Dark Faerie than I was, was because of the way her body changed. Three years ago (or maybe more? After awhile, it all begins to bleed into one mass of misery), she could hardly walk on her hind legs. That night, when I put her to sleep for the last time before my desire for revenge took root in my mind, she could hardly walk four-legged anymore. Her fur was lightening from inky black and beautiful blue to deep purple and midnight black. Her eyes had begun to flicker from the blue of her early childhood to the green of her adulthood, a sure sign of Dark Faerie blood in her lineage becoming more prominent.  
  
Every day she looked more like a Dark Faerie and more like her mother. Every day there was a slight change to her, a patch of fur that was blue the night before was purple the next morning, and one minute her eyes would be blue, then red or green.  
  
I wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not, but I knew then that all our people's hopes rested on her. Somehow I knew even then that I would not be around to watch her grow into the Lady of the Citadel that her people needed, and, sometimes after that night, wondered if perhaps she was going to be the great ruler because I would not be around to taint her purity.  
  
I was a fool, I guess, to think that I could protect her. After I saw my Selena, sword in hand, a look of utmost rage and defiance on her once sweet face, and holding a wounded Meridell knight as she stood at the top of the Citadel, I...  
  
I wonder what she would have been like if I had survived the explosion of the Orb and was there to fill her head with how evil the Meridell menace was and how much Darigan deserved all of Neopia, if my little girl had grown up into such a fierce lady on her own.  
  
She curled her wing around her Candychan, as she lay in her once grand bed, watching me with eyes that glowed an unnatural green. She was kneading the sheets, wringing soft fabric under hard claws out of some nervousness brewing on the edge of her mind. I sat on the edge of her bed, having just pulled the covers over her.  
  
No crickets sounded outside her window the way they had when she was younger. They had been some of the first to go, either driven away by a sixth sense that the rest of us should have heeded, or perhaps they did not survive the first year. The birds went with them.  
  
A cool breeze blew through Selena's window and I made sure she was secure under the covers and made a mental note to call for a fire for the fireplace. Selena shivered and her Candychan squeaked, and I knew in my aching heart that it was not from cold.  
  
"Tell me a story, Daddy," she said quietly, still scared of whatever that frightened her so.  
  
I put my scaly, clawed hands in my lap and bowed my head, tears brimming in my eyes.  
  
I swallowed hard and answered softly, "I...don't have any stories."  
  
Selena of the Moon's eyes widened, a green glow shining on her paws.  
  
"But you ALWAYS have the best stories!" she protested.  
  
I looked away from her. My people cried for food and medicine that I could not give. The called for retribution, sometimes, but mostly they just wanted relief from the agony they endured, and I could not look my daughter, the happiest creature I had ever known during this time of crisis, in the face.  
  
I swallowed again and questioned her, a tremor in my voice, "Why don't you tell me a story?"  
  
Selena was the true storyteller in the family. She had been making up stories since the day she was born, and one that stuck out quite clearly in my mind was that of a young Lupe pup falling into a country at least four hundred years in the past.  
  
"Okay!" she chirped happily, bringing a smile to Kreluda's pink and white face, "It starts with three ghosts, two male, one female, and a massive red and black bat demon..."  
  
That was the night I met The Three.  
  
After Selena of the Moon talked herself to sleep, I slipped quietly out of her room, shutting her door as quietly as I could and almost stumbling under the weight of the world perched on my demonic wings.  
  
I worried for my daughter and how long she would survive with ribs poking through her skin. I worried about how long it would be before everyone was taken by hunger, and even worse still, if Selena had a Dark Faerie's resilience and would live to see the Citadel fall during such an event.  
  
All too soon, a burden would fall on young Selena's wings, I knew. When I was gone, it would be she who would have to pick up the pieces of my failure.  
  
No Darigan ever locked their doors or hid their neopoints, and why would we? Anyone with the common sense of Prisoner Number Five and his Jelly World nonsense would tell you that if you wanted Darigan's prosperity, just _move_ there. Citadel security had never been strong, and we allowed our undoing to just walk in and take what kept us thriving for so long.  
  
I guess King Skarl didn't want to abdicate his throne, even if it meant sacrificing another nation.  
  
"A burden indeed..." hissed a cool, female voice from behind me as I began to walk down the corridor to get one of my childhood friends, Kass or Galgarrath, to bring Selena some firewood.  
  
I froze, my back prickling. My throat shut and my heart began to race. My eyes widened and I gasped in surprise. I knew everyone in the Citadel by name, and no one had that cold, uncaring voice, like Snowager ice.  
  
I spun around, my robes swirling around me and a sharp _thud, thud_ echoing down the hall where my clawed feet struck the cold stone.  
  
Three Neopians stood looking at me, smiling either unpleasantly or making no expression, it is hard to remember.  
  
One of them was a lovely Faerie, though very pale. Her eyes were icy silver and pupilless, so that I could not see where she looked. Her hair was mostly black, but with white and pale navy blue streaks in the front. A robe covered her body, except for the graceful, white and pale blue wings stretching out of her back, and a black choker ringed her pallid neck.  
  
It was almost as if I could see within her, and I saw a misty, dull purple orb, steaming and smoking inside her, like it had a magical aura. She smiled at me, a very skin-crawling thing to witness, when I took notice.  
  
The second was an immense Lupe male, not so much white as creamy, faded green. He held a sword within his massive paws, and a robe covered all of him except his ears, muzzle, and paws, his red eyes glowing from within.  
  
His robe seemed to be translucent, ghostly armor shining through it. For a second, I questioned if perhaps he was the apparition of a fallen soldier, but I could not place the origin of the metal or designs etched within its surface in neither country nor time period.  
  
The third I wasn't entirely sure what he was, except he was half the size of the other two and vastly overweight, with chubby cheeks sticking far out of his own hood and arms from the sleeves. Whatever he was, he had hooves and wings, but no horns sticking from his hood, or tusks, just a pair of ears that matched the rest of his skin, slightly darker than the Lupe warrior.  
  
It was this one that scared me most, for what was translucent but all too apparent on him was his skeleton. It blazed forth in terrible clearness to my feverish, frightened mind, every bone in perfect detail. It was no tattoo, that I was sure, since I swear the skeleton seemed to be inside skin that was not really there.  
  
"A burden...yes..." he hissed, echoing the Faerie.  
  
"So much trouble awaits for the child...war...famine...disease...disaster..." continued the Lupe.  
  
"It is a shame you will not be there for her, she needs you the mossst..." the Faerie said, leering at me.  
  
My red and yellow eyes widened.  
  
"What's going to happen to my daughter?!" I demanded, balling my fist and stamping my foot.  
  
"Hard to say..."  
  
"...very hard..."  
  
"...maybe live, maybe die..."  
  
"Would you like your daughter to grow into adulthood..."  
  
My mouth hung open and blood sounded in my ears like a big base drum. My heart pounded in my chest hard enough for to see it through my collar of Draconack fur.  
  
"More than anything!"  
  
"Happy and healthy, we suppose?"  
  
I glanced behind me, at my daughter's bedroom door. She was so young...  
  
A heavy sigh escaped my lips as I said, "Indeed."  
  
The three of them spoke to me as if they were one brain, one soul, divided among three bodies. I feared them, but I feared for my child more, and if they could offer her salvation, I would let them. Even if they wanted to take her to Jhudora's Cloud...anything was better than here.  
  
"We can help your daughter..."  
  
"...she can grow strong and brave..."  
  
"...go down in history even..."  
  
"...but she will not succeed on her own..."  
  
"...she will need our help..."  
  
"...and we will need your help, Lord Darrnan Darigan..."  
  
"...yes, indeed, your help..."  
  
I blinked back tears of grief. Every morning was a new start further into despair. I never knew what the future held, but I knew it wouldn't be good. More than anything, I wanted Selena's safety. I wanted her to grow up happy and healthy.  
  
I would have tossed myself over the edge of the highest balcony if they asked, just as long as Selena didn't have to endure this.  
  
"...it will come at a price..."  
  
"...a great price..."  
  
"...a terrible price..."  
  
I looked at my feet, the weight of Neopia on my wingshoulders worse than ever. I was afraid of them, afraid of what the future was.  
  
But the offered my daughter a chance, and I would just have to take my gamble and be done with it.  
  
I looked guiltily back at the room where my daughter slept. I didn't know how much longer any of us could last, even Selena.  
  
Especially Selena.  
  
I then looked back up at them, three ghostly monsters leering at me. Tears burned in eyes the color of flames and I had ceased to listen to my own heart beating.  
  
I raised my hand in front of my face and balled it until the claws drew blood in my hand.  
  
"No price is too great." 


End file.
